Mexico

You are here

Mexico

Migrants moving from Mexico to the United States represent the world's largest migration corridor, and the two countries have a long, complicated history with respect to immigration. Previously a country of emigration, Mexico increasingly has been experiencing new roles: as a country of transmigration and increasingly of settlement. The research here examines Mexico's relationship with its vast diaspora in the United States; the economic, insecurity, and other factors that have led to sizeable emigration; and the country's evolving policymaking with respect to migration.

An estimated 41.3 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2013, about 13 percent of the total U.S. population, constituting the world's largest foreign-born population. This Spotlight from MPI's Jie Zong and Jeanne Batalova offers the most current and sought-after data on immigrants in the United States—including origin, educational attainment, the unauthorized, deportations, and more—in one easy-to-use resource.

Find relevant MPI resources on the phenomenon of unaccompanied child migration—from research, articles, and public briefings that analyze the trends and policy developments surrounding the recent uptick in this migration to data on Central American immigrant populations and country profiles of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—all in one place. Clickhere.

Pages

Remittances would seem to boost the chances that children in Mexico complete high school. But money alone does not improve schooling outcomes in the educationally marginalized, migrant-sending regions of southern Mexico, as Adam Sawyer of the Harvard Graduate School of Education reports.

The recent recession has affected Mexicans in the United States, new flows northward, and remittances to Mexico. Francisco Alba of El Colegio de México examines the latest trends as well as Mexican government policies toward the diaspora, Mexico's role as a transit country, and immigrants and refugee and asylees in Mexico.

In the 1920s, the Catholic Church in Mexico feared that mass emigration north caused the breakup of families and religious conversions. David Fitzgerald of the University of California, San Diego looks at how Church policy eventually became a voice for migrants' rights and how these policies have affected Mexican migration flows and Mexican government policies.

Approximately 400,000 migrants transit through Mexico each year in order to reach the United States, many of them women from Latin America. Gabriela Diaz and Gretchen Kuhner explain how the detention system's structure and new detention procedures affect women.

The economic consequences of emigration on migrants’ countries of origin have long been studied, yet the precise assessment of positive and negative impacts remains complex. This analysis finds that Mexico’s fiscal balance appears to benefit from emigration when considering remittances and labor markets.

Migration to the United States from Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle (El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) has accelerated in the last four decades. This increase has been driven by economic opportunities and facilitated by social networks of friends and family already in the United States.

This report reviews the history of immigration legislation since 9/11, the new enforcement mandates that arose immediately afterward, and the unsuccessful efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform bills during the 109th and 110th Congresses.

Since 1970, the immigrant populations from Mexico and Central America living in the United States have increased significantly: rising by a factor of 20 even as the total U.S. immigrant population increased four-fold over the period. This demographic report examines the age, educational, and workforce characteristics of these immigrants.

Drawing on experiences from Asia, Europe, North America, and the Pacific region, this report presents eight strategies that represent best practices developed by immigrant-receiving countries to increase the economic contributions of immigration.